by Diana Tyler
Why was it so hard for her to come to terms with Ethan’s death? She could remember grieving the loss of her parents in the old timeline, but this seemed infinitely more painful. She realized it was because of her doma. When she was a normal person, there was nothing she could have done to bring them back. But now, as an Asher with the ability to travel back in time, she could save lives, and not just Ethan’s but anyone the rebel spirits killed. Not bringing him back felt like some sort of crime. It felt like murder.
“Ethan is a hero, Chloe,” said her father. “And he will always be remembered as one. But now it’s time for the two of you to be heroic.” He glanced at Damian, then back at her. “The Vessel’s job isn’t done.”
Chloe stood up slowly, her eyes taking in the beauty of the flower arrangements adorning the tables and chairs, cascading over the sides of the deck. She wondered if Ethan could see them. Had he seen all the people who had gathered at the funeral to remember him and celebrate his brief yet oh-so-full and significant life?
She hoped he knew how much she missed him, and how she’d always felt like he was part of the so-called Vessel. Without him, she would have died long ago at the top of Ēlektōr, and Mania’s terror would have endured. The world would be no different than it had been when her parents were murdered.
“I know you don’t want to hear this,” said Damian, “but we just heard from the councilman that Ares escaped his cell. Last night, he thinks. You’re not safe, Chloe. We need to do something, and we need to do it now.”
It had been three days since anyone had heard from or seen anything of the rebel spirits. In light of the recent tragedies, Mount Aetna’s eruption and the reemergence of the pantheon seemed almost like a bad dream Chloe was only now waking up from. And yet all she had to do was think of the source of those tragedies—Ares’ cold, unfeeling face—to remember that the nightmare was all too terribly real. Mania might have been evil, but she’d been taught by the best.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
OATH
Eione had never been to the Xirolakos Valley before. Or, if she had, her drug-induced stupor had prevented her from realizing it. With low-hanging clouds blocking the sky and flurries of snow coming down, she had half a mind to think she was at Pantheon, standing on the peak of Olympus. But the gods’ ascension was still far off. They needed more followers, and she intended to help acquire them.
The valley was a veritable fortress, covered with walls and towers taller than any she’d ever seen. Thick, bronze-sheathed doors were opened wide, as if welcoming invaders or inviting curious hikers to trespass. As she passed through the doors, her nostrils filled with the smell of smoke, incense and burning meat. Sacrifices were being made, which could only mean one thing: the gods’ presence was known in Petros, at least by the few who’d been waiting for it.
“Princess Eione.”
Eione’s eyes flashed to a cluster of white stone palaces shining in the distance, each one like a pearl shimmering in the torchlight around them. “Athena,” she said, bowing as the goddess appeared before her, clad in a plain chiton and bronze cuirass, her black hair tied in a knot at the crown of her head. “It is I. I come as a friend, to offer myself in thrall to the eternal Titans and peerless Olympians.”
Athena nodded, her piercing eyes like the slate-covered waves of home. “Does your father know you are here?”
“My father is Zeus. My grandfather, Cronus.” Eione stared at the goddess, trying to ignore the twinge of regret in her utterance. “Nereus…” She hesitated, just long enough for Athena to tilt her chin. “Nereus is a traitor.”
Athena cast a furtive glance around the citadel before floating toward Eione, landing a mere handsbreadth away from her. “Consider well what you’re doing. There’s no going back.” She drew her sword and dragged its tip along the sandy street. “Here,” she said, indicating the line, “is where you choose your fate, how the world shall remember you.”
“I have considered,” Eione said, willing her voice to match the earnestness of Athena’s. “My allegiance has and will always be to the greatest of the gods. My father has made his choice, and I care not if that choice sends him back to Tartarus.” She looked down at the line, held her breath and stepped over it coolly.
“Then it is done.” Athena erased the line with a roll of her fingers then took Eione’s hand. “Zeus will wish to see you now.”
Cold snowflakes kissed their skin as they flew to the only palace encircled by brazen walls. They landed in the courtyard before rows of golden doors and silver pillars. Flaming cressets lined the colonnade, giving the palace the air of a holy temple.
Below the cornice, a sapphire frieze wrapped around the walls, decorated with bas-reliefs of the twelve Titans and nine Olympians still welcome on the mountain. The image of Hephaestus, the god who was assumed to have constructed this palace and all those surrounding it, was hardly discernible between the dazzling marble forms of Aphrodite and Artemis; his back was turned from the viewer, hunched over an anvil with a hammer raised over his head.
The flames of the cressets weaved and danced as the wind of their flight sped Athena and Eione through the closed doors into the megaron, the room reserved in every spirit’s home for eating and drinking and arguing, at least in Eione’s experience.
“Victory is won only when we are all wedded to a single, indivisible purpose,” boomed Zeus’ voice.
Eione saw him sitting on a golden throne beside Cronus. Each was robed in purple, and they had laurel wreathes atop their heads. It was the younger man who spoke.
“You Titans and we Olympians must maintain our alliance,” Zeus said, glancing at Athena and Eione before turning to the radiant gods gathered before him. “Even when the new dawn has come and Pantheon lies wide before us.”
The gods and goddesses murmured to one another. It had been eons since the two factions had been one, and it stirred the ichor in Eione’s veins to imagine them being so again.
“No more feasting separately.” Zeus indicated the man seated next to him. “My father, Cronus, and I have agreed to share our tables equally, together. It is avarice and pride that drove a wedge between us, so it shall be munificence and humility that rips it out.”
There was more murmuring, and a few half-angry voices, but no god had the courage to speak against cloud-gathering Zeus.
“If you object to our proposition of peace, you will leave Xirolakos at once and do your best to avoid us for the rest of your endless days.” Zeus’ broad brow furrowed as his brooding eyes scanned every face, resting on each for what felt like minutes. “Very well. It seems we are all of one mind. Let us swear now never to change it.”
He nodded to a servant boy standing in the corner, the only one in their midst with an unremarkable mortal frame. “Hector, you may bring it now.” Zeus stepped off the dais and floated to the torch-encircled altar.
Hector, dressed as a servant in a linen, ankle-length tunic, disappeared into the hallway and returned seconds later with a white goat trailing behind him. He led it to the altar where, just after stroking its docile head, Zeus took a knife and slashed its throat. Without a sound, the creature collapsed, its dark blood pouring into the silver bowl Hector held beneath it.
One by one, each god went to the altar and marked their wrists with the goat’s spilled blood, binding them to one another.
“Princess,” Zeus said to Eione, as Hector carried the goat’s body away. “It is your turn.”
Athena nudged Eione forward, then followed behind her as Eione made the long walk to the altar, her eyes fixed on the gray marble floors.
Zeus held out his hand for Eione to take. She did so, and kissed his smooth, spotless hand, pristine as a statue’s. She was glad when he spoke first, for her tongue was like a stone.
“Brave Eione.” Even at a whisper, his voice thundered. Eione wondered if thunder itself was not confined within, primed to shake the skies with a single shout. “It’s unfortunate that it was not your father who brought you here this
day. Thankfully he’s one of the shrewdest among us. I have no doubt he will do nothing to incur my wrath.”
“Yes, my king,” Eione said. She’d never felt more ugly or inferior in all her life. Compared to the flawless gods around her, arrayed in robes brilliantly dyed and with faces more beauteous than all the Nereids’ combined, she was as a beggar who’d washed up like a lump of flotsam on their shores. Her salt-water scent, which had once smelled so sweet to her, was now rotten, soured by the realization that she’d never been a goddess after all, not a true one.
“Your mercy is unrivaled,” she said, referring to his mercy on both her father and her own humiliating homeliness.
“Do you swear your allegiance to the Titans and Olympians, and hereby divorce yourself from the house of Nereus?”
“I do.” Eione dipped her finger into the blood-filled bowl and dabbed both wrists until her ice-blue veins were covered.
“And I swear my loyalty, Father,” said Athena, gingerly smearing her white wrists red.
Zeus smiled. “You, dear daughter, are perhaps the only one whose fidelity I never question.”
Although the war goddess tried not to show it, it was clear that his words pleased Athena greatly. No god would fail to blush with flattery at such affirmation.
When the bowl was drained, the Olympians seated themselves on wide, pillowed benches and mingled. They spoke in light, ebullient voices, sounding relieved that Zeus’ temper had not been roused. Hector weaved between them, offering goblets of nectar and bite-size pieces of ambrosia.
Zeus took Eione by the arm and led her to the eastern wall, on which hung a tapestry of eagles. “Speak truthfully, Eione. Do you know if your father is neutral? Or has he, as my heart fears, sided with the Ashers?”
Eione had known the question was coming and was resigned to answering promptly. No matter if it took a thousand years, she would damn every last ounce of affection for her father.
“It is the latter, Father Zeus. The last time I was with him, he was advising the time-traveling Asher, the girl Chloe, to act hastily to impede you.”
Zeus’ irises darkened until Eione could have sworn cyclones were spiraling within them. “Impede me…” The knuckles of his storm-filled fists turned white as ocean foam. “How will she seek to do this?”
“I do not know.” Without thinking, Eione cowered, fearing he would strike her for her ignorance.
“Don’t be afraid.” His fists relaxed. The cyclones in his eyes broke apart. “Who informed the Ashers of my plan?”
Eione was tempted to contrive an answer. She didn’t want to disappoint him again, yet neither did she want to be found out as a liar. “The only reasonable assumption is that Duna sent one of his messengers to warn them.” Feeling someone watching her, she turned to see Athena approaching, the war goddess’s skin luminous, as if dusted with starlight.
“Should I show the princess to her chambers, Father?” Athena asked.
“Not yet.” Zeus gazed up at the tapestry, as if one of its eagles might reveal a portent at any moment. “I’m afraid she’ll have to wait a while longer before resting.”
Eione tucked her hair behind her ears. Unwittingly, she’d been using it to shield herself from Zeus’ scrutiny. She feared that the second he detected anything questionable about her, she would find herself in Tartarus, or at the mercy of some diabolical beast whose sole purpose was to torture the unkillable immortals.
“What would you have me do?” Eione asked, a trembling mouse before a merciless lion.
Zeus stepped closer, the torchlight behind her warming his skin to gold. “Duna has messengers, as I used to have.” His face dimmed as he called one to mind. “Hermes.”
Athena’s long arm snaked its way under her father’s. “My brother will pay for his sins in due course. I will see to it personally.” Her voice, low and lovely, comforted Eione, even though it was not directed at her. “Perhaps my brave cousin could take his place.”
Eione stiffened. This, too, she had expected, and yet to hear the idea discussed by these two was enough to make her regret ever coming here in the first place. What if she failed them? Surely Zeus would not show mercy then, not with the future of Olympus at stake.
The sea nymph shuddered as she watched Zeus’ lips form the word yes. “Yes?” she echoed, her throat closing as every shred of bravery she might have possessed flew out of her.
“You will be my messenger.” It was clear by his tone that this was not a suggestion but a command. “You must go to your father under the pretense of reconciliation. When you have regained his trust, inquire of the Ashers’ strategy. If Ares does his job, the time traveler will be dead soon enough, but we cannot assume that killing her will put an end to any incipient revolts. The more we know, the better.”
The cool, crisp air of the hall streamed like water into Eione’s mouth, dissolving the anxiety that had been plaguing her. She turned her wrists to the roof and stared down at them, admiring how pretty the blood looked, as if an artist had painted it on. “It’s a brilliant plan, Father Zeus.”
Already, Eione’s mind was imagining her name being whispered among the gods and circulating through the streets of Petros. She would be remembered, respected as the only sea nymph ever to ascend to the ranks of Olympus. Soon, very soon, she would prove herself worthy of becoming a goddess, and her life in the Great Sea would fade into the fog of memory.
“Come.” Athena left her father’s side and took Eione’s hand. “Have some nectar before your journey.”
Arm in arm, the goddess and the sea nymph floated across the floor until they came to Hector standing in the center of the room; he was stony-faced and still, as if he’d just been winked at by Medusa.
“Nectar for my new sister,” ordered Athena.
Eione could hardly believe that Hector was an Asher. Like his cousin Chloe, he was plain to look at, neither brawny nor tall, and with mousy hair that matched his vacant eyes. But at least Chloe had spirit. This one looked as if he was slow in the head. He stared blankly at them, and Eione wondered why Athena did not strike him for his rudeness.
“Nectar.” Athena repeated the word twice more, each time louder and slower than the last. She pointed at the amphora sitting on the ivory pedestal behind him.
“Is he simple?” Eione had said it loudly enough for Hector to hear, but he didn’t seem to understand, much less be offended.
“Forgetful is a better word.” Athena opened her left hand and moved her right in a circle above it, creating a black-glazed cup with red-clay designs of wreaths and garlands etched across its middle. “Ares had him drink from the Lethe.” She smiled, watching Hector fill the goblet. “Beyond how to sit and speak and eat and sleep, he knows absolutely nothing.”
Eione took the cup and held it close, watching the bright red liquid shimmer as it swirled inside. “How brilliant,” she said, “and merciful, to be sure. For now he will bear no guilt when the Ashers fall because he won’t even know their faces.” She took a sip and tried not to grimace at the bitterness. “It’s quite different than the nectar we drink in the sea.” She coughed so loudly that the gods beside her turned to look.
“You’ll get used to it.” Athena smiled, clearly amused by Eione’s discomfort.
The sea nymph drank again, feeling a strange, euphoric peace flow through her. She forgot all about the dreadful taste and drank until she could see the bottom of the goblet and the golden words written there: What is your father’s name?
Eione opened her mouth to answer, but her mind was utterly blank. Not only was she unable to recall whom her father was, but she couldn’t think of any name but her own. Oddest of all, she didn’t care.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
TARTARUS
Hector bit the inside of his lip to keep from smiling. It had worked. It had really worked. Whatever spell Athena had cast had erased Eione’s memory while simultaneously restoring his. He tried not to flinch or drop the amphora as blood pounded in his brain, pricking his skull as wave
after wave of memories flooded in. He remembered Athena telling him this would happen. He remembered her telling him to trust her.
I’m seventeen years old. I live in Eirene. Charissa is my mother. Philip is my father.
And then he remembered: his father was dead, murdered by the god of war, who was now laughing, hyena-like, as Dionysus made lewd gestures while dancing with Aphrodite.
“Act as you were before,” Athena whispered.
“How was I acting before?”
“Like a dumb post.” She turned to Eione. “Come, princess, it’s time to send you on your errand. Wave goodbye to Father Zeus.”
Eione smiled the carefree, contented smile of someone who had just woken up from the sweetest of dreams. She tried to take a drink from her cup, frowning when she discovered it was empty.
Hector refilled it, putting on his best dumb-post face.
“Thank you. That’s very kind. Are you Father Zeus?”
He laughed, and Athena jabbed him in the ribs with her sharp elbow. “No, I’m not. I’m Hector.” He pointed across the room to the dais where Zeus and Cronus stood. “That’s Zeus, the younger one.”
Sensing their eyes on him, Zeus inclined his head and raised his golden cup.
“Farewell, Father Zeus, I’m going on my errand,” Eione said. With any luck, Zeus would chalk up her giddiness to mere excitement and not the lingering effects of the Lethe.
He nodded again, and then quickly dismissed her with a wave of his hand.
Athena let out her breath and said to Hector, “Stay here with her while I speak with Zeus.” In a matter of seconds, she was standing on the dais.
Hector forced himself not to stare; instead he focused on the lion-shaped legs of an empty oak-wood bench.
“What is your name?” Eione asked. “And why do you look so different from all the rest?” Her hand swung toward the gods and goddesses reveling behind her.
